Seize the Damn Day, Winger!
by GoodKing0
Summary: During an alcoholic night alone in his apartment, Jeff receives the visit of an old friend. (WARNING: ONE-SHOT, Jeff/Annie, Jeff/Pierce friendship, spoilers for episodes 5x01, 5x02 and 5x03. It may cause Angst in the most sensible reader.)


**A N: Have you heard the saying that, if you repeat three times "I don't own community" facing a mirror, nothing will happen? Strange, right?**

**A N 2: In loving memory of Pierce Hawthorne, 1945-2014, Dick. With you, we don't only lose a possible alley in our crusade to get Jeff and Annie finally together, but also one of the original cast. May your body be vaporized and then be converted in a lava lamp.**

He's drinking scotch. Not the good quality stuff, no, he stopped buying that after his first week as a teacher, realizing that, with his already small salary, he could barely afford his rent.

He's drinking it because he's trying to fight his greatest enemy. He's drowning it in alcohol, something that already worked many times before. But his enemy is clever, always hiding in the places where the alcohol cannot reach him, ready to attack when he least expect it. And this time, he doesn't even need to hide, because this time the scotch isn't strong enough to defeat him. And so he's winning, _damn it!_

He cannot permit him to win! And so he takes another sip, making a face for the alcohol _cheap _and _bad_ aftertaste. And another one. And another one.

But tonight, his enemy is strong. He resists his attacks, hitting him with all of his might. And it hurts, like many times before it hurt.

Because Jeff's greatest enemy is strong. Because Jeff's greatest enemy is a bastard. Because Jeff's greatest enemy were, are and will always be, his feelings.

Collapsed on his couch, a half-plenty bottle on his coffee table, an almost empty glass in his hand, Jeff was thinking. Thinking about platonic shoulder hugs. Thinking about his many capers with her. Thinking about evil timelines.

Thinking about death.

Pierce was dead. Jeff was… conflicted, about the news. His cold and snarky side, the "Monster", the same side that convinced him to cheat his way to become a lawyer, the same who encouraged him to distancing himself from the group, was shouting at him to be happy about it, that the world was now a better place without him. And he should be happy.

And yet he wasn't.

He wasn't because a bigger part of him, the part who kept him on the good side of the law during his year as a good lawyer, the same part who grew stronger and stronger every lesson he was trying to not learn, the same part of him who, right now, was reminding him of all those moments he and Pierce had passed together, both good and bad, and that reminded him that, despite everything, he had liked the racist, old man.

Jeff took another sip, placing the now empty glass on the table and turning on the TV, searching for something to watch to divert his mind from the pain.

After a while, Jeff dozed off, dreaming about conspiracy theories and barber shops.

He jerked awake after some minutes, taking again the glass and filling it with scotch. He drank it all in one go.

He almost spit it when he saw the ghost in front of him, floating in the air.

"What now, Winger, too gay to handle even the cheap scotch?"

"Pierce?" Jeff said, bewildered by the man bluish presence, "What are you doing here, you're dead!"

"Do you remember that time when Annie's boobs took Annie's pen?" Pierce said glancing around the apartment, smiling fondly, his ethereal blue eyes unfocused, like Jeff had never said anything "She went ballistic over it. But that's our Annie, always dedicated, always caring, because to her, even a pen it's called Steve and has an heart. And it's also obvious that I'm not talking about pens here."

"What do you mean?" Jeff said, accepting the insanity of him talking to a dead man because, come' on, stranger things happened.

"You are dumber than I remembered, Winger. Look, what did you tell to the group to stop them from tearing each other apart that time?"

Jeff tried to focus his memory on that particular moment of his life, "I've said that it took it… A ghost?"

"Which means…?" Pierce trailed off, impatience in his voice.

"Which means that you are a ghost?" Jeff asked, disbelieving his every word.

"Duh-Doy! I'm the ghost of Jacob Marley, sucker!" He howled, bluish chains appearing on his body, his hands outstretched toward Jeff, as to grab him.

"There are no such things as ghosts." Jeff said calmly, eyeing him skeptically, "And also, it's a bit too late to do "A Greendale Christmas Carol". Christmas was days ago."

"Really?" Pierce said, dropping his act, the chains disappearing, looking down at the floor "Sorry, they must have set the wrong date" He looked again at him, his eyes wide "But… But I'm still a ghost. A terriiible ghooooooost, Ooooooooooh!"

"Come here a minute, will you?" He rose from the couch, ready to reach the floating man.

"Okay, I'm not a ghost." Pierce said, floating away from his friend, "But I'm still dead."

"And, I beg your pardon, why can I still talk to you?" Jeff asked, slumping on the couch.

"Because my religion stored my consciousness into an holographic device after my death, permitting me to wait for the second advent of Buddha while still interacting with the physical world." Pierce stated matter-of-factly, pointing to the small box that only now Jeff noticed on his table

"What…" Jeff said, frowning, "… No, just… No."

"Why not?"

"Why not? Pierce, your religion is a cult! Where the hell did they find the necessary resources to…" Jeff stopped, staring in horror at his ghostly friend smile "… You gave the necessary resources to them, right?"

"Yep."

Jeff sat in silence for a while, "Why?"

"First, because I don't want to spend the rest of my death as a Lava Lamp, second, because I want to hang out with you guys and third…" His eyes were like burning holes on Jeff, "… Because we need to talk."

"Talk?" Jeff manly asked, (and not squeaked, because only girls and Troy squeaks, not Jeff) feeling suddenly hot in the cool hair of his apartment, "… About what?"

"Or about who?" Pierce asked, his stare returning gentler shortly after, "See, I've quoted Abed's gay show. I hope he will like it when you tell him about this."

"Not to burst your bubble, but you've quoted the wrong show"

"Damn' it!"

"But seriously, about who?"

"I've already been in this apartment, once." Pierce said, deflecting Jeff question, "I've seen that you've finally sold most of your crap, thought." He said, floating around the apartment, "Yep. You've sold everything. There's nothing here that could have any kind of value"

"Where you're getting at, Pierce?"

"And yet, why didn't you sell this curtain?" He pointed a bluish finger at a purple curtain on the window, the only note of color in the room.

Jeff's face went pale, "We're not talking about that."

"Why didn't you sell this curtain, Jeff? It's gay and purple and Irish! Some buyer of "Hawthorne Pride Wipes" would have paid well for it."

"Stop it, Pierce, I'm not falling for it" Jeff said, erecting defenses in his brain against the old man's machinations.

"But probably your right, this curtain is _ugly _and _stupid_. Nobody would have wanted it. You know what, you should just tear it down and use it as toilet paper. It must annoy you very much, always having it around…"

"Hey!" Jeff snapped, as rightful rage shattered all of his defenses, "That curtain is not ugly, and it's definitely not stupid! It can annoy the hell out of me sometimes, but those times are always counterweighted by bigger, better, more numerous moments…" In Jeff's brain began to ring some alarm bells "… Yeah, we've got our issues, but I would never replace it with any other curtain in the world. And that's because she's the most beautiful, amazing, intelligent…" Jeff stopped himself abruptly, finally listening to the alarm bells in his brain.

During his rant, Jeff had risen from his couch, pacing toward Pierce's ethereal form and pointing his finger at his blue face. Who was now smiling.

"When did you become that good?" Jeff asked.

"The circuits of this thing help me remember everything happened to me since the day I was born. And I'm always been that good."

"I was talking about the curtain…" Jeff began, not even him believing it.

"We were never talking about curtains, dummy!" Pierce said, floating toward the other side of the room, leaving Jeff pointing at the air.

Jeff sighed, turning toward Pierce "What do you want from me?"

"Me? I want nothing…" Pierce said, putting his holographic foots on the ground for the first time, "The true question here is, what do YOU want?"

Jeff slowly gulped, "I…"

"Because as I see it, you definitively want Annie" Pierce interrupted him, "And not just to pork her."

Jeff mind went blank in terror as he stumbled for answers, "I… No, we're… we're just…"

"Friends?" Pierce completed his statement, advancing towards him "I was friend with a woman, once. We did all those kind of stuff friends usually do, like platonic shoulder hugs and long, lingering glances with each other." He said, still advancing toward Jeff, who quickly took some steps back, "She was my second wife."

"See, that's another proof that me and Annie cannot be together" He said with a nervous laugh, his back hitting the wall.

"I'm a widower, Winger. She died of an ictus six years after our marriage."

Jeff stared in terror as the man kept advancing toward him with painful slowness, "T- the age difference…"

"You porked my step-daughter and she was younger then Annie is right now"

"But she wasn't Annie"

"No…" Pierce said, his body now inches apart from his, "… Annie is better."

"I'm his teacher."

"One word. Slater."

"I will hurt her."

"You already did…" Pierce said, both his hands touching the wall around Jeff's head, "… Or maybe you're afraid that SHE will be the one to hurt YOU."

"Why are you doing this?"

Pierce stared hard in Jeff's eyes, to then quickly float away, "I've probably already told you that Annie is my favorite, right?"

"Yeah." Jeff said unsurely, distancing himself from the wall.

"Do you remember what did I told you that night of so many years ago, the day you founded the study group?"

"You presented wrongly the rest of the study group?"

"No, forehead, I mean outside of the library." Pierce snapped, wondering around the room.

"You've said…" Jeff trailed off, remembering now that conversation.

"I've said that you reminded me of myself younger." Pierce concluded, returning to the holographic box, "And I just tell you already, because if I wait for your stupid meaty brain I could die of boredom, again, that Annie reminds me of Elizabeth, my second wife…" Pierce's holographic eyes dropped an holographic tear "… My princess, the only woman I've ever loved outside my mother."

"So you're doing it just to reenact you tragic love story?" Jeff shouted at him, outraged, "So typical of you, Pierce!"

"No idiot, I'm doing it because I see what you two have, and I don't want you to ruin it like I did. Listen to me Jeff, go to her, do like that over-joyful Robin Williams lookalike always shout at his student and _Seize the Damn Day! _Don't waste your time!"

"Shut up!" Jeff bellowed, grabbing a chair and smashing it against the cube on the table, destroying it.

Pierce image flickered, "See… that's what happen… when I try to do… a good deed…"

And Pierce image was gone.

Jeff breathed heavily, still standing in front of his smashed table.

His doorbell rang.

Jeff quickly went toward the door, jerking it open with strength, ready to shout to anyone there to disturb him in his rage.

But Jeff words died on his throat, as his hear broke when he saw, lying on the ground outside his apartment, Annie Edison, his Annie Edison, in a pool of blood, a knife trough her heart.

A familiar man was looming over her, another knife in his hand, giving Jeff the most cheerful and reassuring of smiles.

"Blimey, Jeff, seems like someone didn't listen to our lessons on gentleness toward the elders! They've got so few time left, you know?"

Jeff screamed as the knife sliced through his broken heart.

* * *

Annie was crying on one of the recliners on apartment 303, watching a compilation of _inspector Spacetime _saddest deaths on her laptop, trying to divert her mind from Pierce. And Jeff.

Her doorstep rang.

She closed her laptop, taking a napkin to rub her red eyes as she went to inspect who was ringing at such an hour. Her heart skipped a bit when she realized he was Jeff.

"Jeff, what are you doing here, it's almost…" She said, opening the door, before her was shouted by his, crushing on hers.

After the initial shock, Annie reciprocated, deepening the kiss, as Jeff closed the door behind him.

He pulled away, staring at her in the eyes, still embracing her.

She sighed, knowing well what was about to happen.

"What was that for?"

"I had a nightmare."

"A pretty scary nightmare if you drive through the city at night just to reach your platonic best friend and kiss her." She said bitterly, trying to break their embrace. He didn't let go of her.

"Just following the advice of an old friend of mine."

"Which means?" she asked, still looking at him, hope in his eyes.

"Which means that next time we go on a date, instead of trying to find out who's guilty of the death of our yam, we go on actual date…" He looked at her uncertainly "… If it's good for you, obviously."

Annie beamed at him, "Of course I would like it, Jeff."

Jeff smiled fondly at her, cupping her face and placing a soft kiss on hers.

"Wait…" Annie said, looking at him.

His smile faltered a bit. "… We will still do our capers together, right? I've always enjoyed them."

Jeff laughed, kissing her forehead.

* * *

"And that day was then remembered forever by Jeff. Because that day, two of his greatest enemies teamed up to teach him a lesson, the most important one of his life. How to love."

"And it went exactly like that, uncle Abed?"

"Yes, Elisabeth, it went exactly like that. Now go to sleep, or your parents will have my head because you've stayed awake all night, listening to my story."

"They wouldn't if they knew… *Yawn* … that you recounted me how they had fallen in love."

"Good Night, Elisabeth. Night. Night. Night."

"Good Night, uncle Abed."


End file.
